Before Photos - Master Bedroom

I must begin by confessing how very hard it is to share these particular photos. While the photos of our living spaces showed some messiness, it is much more personal for me to show the pictures of our messy bedroom. We do manage to make the bed every day, or nearly, but there is a huge amount of clutter.

The view from the doorway. Not so terrible.


DH's nightstand and clean laundry.


My nightstand and stash of items for ProjectTwentySix.


Pile o'junk on the floor. In my defense some of this is related to the linen closet project.


Dresser with all sorts of junk and my clean laundry.


It's really not always this bad, but for dramatic effect it was a good day to take the photos. You can see why I really want to get rid of things and simplify!

Katie

Before Photos - Upstairs Living Spaces

Two weeks ago I showed you my scary basement. Today I'm sharing some of our upstairs, where we spend most of our time. It's cluttered, no question, but I hope you'll agree it's not as bad as the basement!

This is a photo of our formal living room. That's 3 couches, 5 tables, 2 chairs, 3 lamps, a curio cabinet, and a plant. On the right, hidden from view, is a secretary desk. We were recently given one of these couches and are trying to get rid of the matching floral couch & loveseat. If we can't manage to sell them on Craig's List or find someone who wants them, we'll try and donate them.

This is the view from the opposite side of the room.

This is the kids' bathroom. I am purposefully showing these rooms in their "natural" state without tidying up. We toss the curtain up for baths, there is usally hair or teeth stuff lingering on the countertop, and that potty training seat is irritatingly often pulled out from the cabinet.

This is a view of our hall closet. Many, many things get tossed in here. It's pretty organized, but it has to be because there's so much stuff in there! You can see we keep the diaper stockpile, toilet paper, gifts, gift wrap, birthday party supplies and more here.

The view into the opposite corner shows more gift wrap.

This is the kitchen. The island usually has some piles, the cupboards are full of Bible verses and lists, and the fridge has lots of photos of friends, family, and missionaries we pray for conveniently out of the little kids' reach. Up above the cupboards are things rarely used, but requiring parent supervision. In truth, I'm not sure how different this room will look after ProjectTwentySix. We spend so much time in here it's destined to be the most cluttered, but I'm sure there will be some improvement.

This is the playroom. You can see many toys stacked in those bins on the shelves. Under the window are piles of clean laundry. That's more laundry folded on the couch and tossed over the back. It looks like this about twice a week. My kids have so many clothes that I can do NO laundry for 3-4 weeks and they'll still have clothes to wear. Clothing is one of the big elimination goals for ProjectTwentySix. Back in the corner is an old dinosaur desktop that the kids use for CD-Rom games. It isn't hooked up the internet.


It's humbling to share these "real" photos with you. I know all of us have messy houses sometimes, but usually we can clean up before friends come over. And in truth, my friends have seen my house in much worse shape than these photos show! I'm hoping ProjectTwentySix will make the "real" state of my house better and better!

In a couple more weeks I'll share bedroom pictures. *sigh*

Katie

Before Pictures - Basement Catch-All

Today I decided to show you what my basement looked like as this project started. It's messy. It's dirty. It's more than a little embarrassing. It still mostly looks like this, but it WILL look completely different 11 months from now!

This view is toward the stairs. There is stuff piled on the stairs - mostly like dressup items that come upstairs and in my haste just toss back down the stairs. The dressup chest is just to the left of the steps. On the right is our Playmobile house up on a table with a million little pieces. On the left is the Barbie castle and barbie tub and our giant TV we don't use.


Looking at the TV, you can see we use the shelves and cabinet to pile stuff up and store VHS tapes. On the right is a closet door to a great, long closet that runs under the whole length of stairs. It is full of boxes, packaging materials and things the I hope(d?) to one day sell on ebay. ProjectTwentySix will get those gone, either donated or sold eventually.

Next, you can see part of DH's movie collection. We are 85% VHS. DH doesn't see why we should replace with DVDs because technology is already past DVDs with digital copies becoming more and more available. He also likes that the kids can't ruin VHS tapes without real effort. DVDs get scratched and broken easily. These are both great points, and I shouldn't complain about a husband hobby that costs $.50 a few times a month! I do feel like this collection takes a lot of space though and it's more "stuff" that entraps us.

This is the view into the other side of our basement. Scary, huh? This used to be our office. A water leak two years ago made us move nearly everything upstairs and it's become a dumping spot for little used office supplies, old papers, and clearly, construction debris. See all the insulation? How about the 2x4s? Does anybody want some free firewood? I'll even cut it up for you if you want to come and get it. On the left is DH's old desk.

This is from the other side of the old office. You can see the desk much more clearly. I don't know yet if we'll get that upstairs into the new office (old formal dining room) or if we'll just hire a carpenter to make a built-in for us. Is resale better in a 5 bedroom house with a really nice office or a formal dining room?
You can also see another section of the VHS collection. On the left you can see the top edge of another bookshelf. That shelf is also full of VHS tapes.

This is looking into the big closet in that old office. The DIP sign came into the marriage with DH. Does anyone know an appropriate way to dispose of a sign like that? I don't think we're supposed to have it . . .
Those boxes and binders on the shelves are old magazines, DH's art student projects from Digipen, my old Babysitter's Club book collection, and sadly, several boxes that call for exploration and one that hasn't even been opened since we bought our first house over 7 years ago.

Finally, we have giant bags of construction debris. Those are mostly full of sheetrock and insulation. On the left edge of the picture you can see a giant rock that came out of our crawl space and a bit of a fax machine. Has anyone or anyone you know used a fax machine lately? Us either.



Please share any thoughts. I can take it!

Katie